


Breathe

by Pharmockery



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Grief, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, NO BETA WE DIE LIKE HEROES, Parenthood, Pregnancy, Probably more like T but I'm a sucker for the rules, m to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:13:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29950497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pharmockery/pseuds/Pharmockery
Summary: Three times Robin told Chrom to breathe, three times Chrom told Robin, and one time someone should have told the two of them.---"Woah. Hey now. Breathe for me, my love. There you go. In, and out. Easy when you think about it.”
Relationships: Chrom/My Unit | Reflet | Robin
Kudos: 37





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Writing practice wherein I was rather pleased with the result so I am throwing onto the archive. Some liberties taken with canon, but it was past midnight when I wrote it so I hope you forgive them.
> 
> As mentioned in the tags the M rating is for safety but quite frankly it might be more like a T.

“Chrom, gods, Chrom. I’m so sorry. Chrom, breathe, please, we need you.”

She’s the first to say it, when he’s howling his rage at seeing Emmeryn’s fall, hating the world, hating Plegia, _loathing_ that man, that excuse for a king—and she tells him to breathe, the first to approach him when he crumples to the floor, her arms around him as his shoulders shake.

Robin tells him to breathe. He breathes. The sad smile on her face makes him seek comfort in her arms again, staying there until Lissa joins them, face streaked with tears as Robin carefully relinquishes her Chrom to her embrace. The two siblings grieve now it’s safe, and Robin stays by them the entire time, as still and stoic a guard as Frederick, whose grief is clear to those who know him, complex in its own way.

(Later, when there are training dummies to destroy and bags of grain to punch into submission, he will work through it.)

Eventually, Chrom gets up, his sister following, and the war continues. Because it has to.

* * *

“Woah. Hey now. Breathe for me, my love.”

The first time he says it to her is on their wedding day. It takes a particular kind of person to be comfortable with crowds, and Robin is not that kind of person. In front of the cheering commonfolk and nobility, even Chrom finds himself flushed and nervous, lips dry as they kneel before the statue of Naga. There is _fear_ in Robin’s face, a kind he’s not seen before.

“Chrom…” Her breathing is shallow, face almost as pale as her hair, and it reminds him of a ghost. He grips her hands tight, and her breathing settles somewhat. He smiles at her encouragingly.

“There you go. In, and out. Easy when you think about it.”

She closes her eyes, ignoring the crowd of people who watch them, all of whom waiting for her to mirror his own vows. They watch her almost desperately, commonfolk and nobility alike desperate for a peace so hard-fought. It is a pressure quite unlike anything else, and he knows how it feels. He runs a reassuring thumb over her own, and she exhales once more, before continuing, voice loud for the chapel to hear.

“I, Robin, of the Shepherds, promise myself before Naga to you…”

* * *

“Robin, my love, gods… Let’s catch our breath.”

The second time he says it to her is damn near every night once they’re married. When he brings her to the edge and coaxes her over, and repeats, until they’re both breathless. She’s practically sobbing if he leaves her there, but he’s not that cruel, and she pays it back tenfold. The activities of the prince and his new bride are near enough an open, unspoken secret, although the lack of a child raises a few eyebrows.

He could not care less, not when Robin stares at him with such _love_ in her eyes as her chest heaves to catch her breath and he lays, exhausted, next to her. He bundles her close, tucks the sheets around them, and by the time he is placing a chaste butterfly kiss onto the top of her head, she is asleep, and he’s close to following. He stares at the ceiling, eyelids drooping, and thanks Naga for this moment, and every moment since Robin came into his life, and prays that it never ends.

* * *

“Chrom, my beloved, I’m here. I’m here, Chrom… Breathe, my love, breathe.”

She tells him to breathe once more during the first year of their marriage, when the night is broken by his yell, when the nightmares wake him again. He’s seeing the fall again, except this time it’s Frederick—Lissa—Robin… Everyone he cares for. Each of the Shepherds. And he cannot run, cannot stop it, hears Gangrel’s foul laughter in his ear, hears Lissa’s scream louder, louder, and then it’s his _own_ —

Robin clutches him close, stroking his sweat soaked hair without a care as she mumbles soft words to him, urging him to remember to _breathe_ , that they won, remember that they _won_ and Ylisse is safe, at last, until finally his eyes flutter shut once more.

It seems, strangely, that after those terrors he always sleeps better.

* * *

“You have to breathe, Robin. Breathe— Gods, I’m so proud of you.”

When Lucina arrives, it’s noisy, the young princess exercising her lungs with gusto, settling only when the midwife hands her, swaddled, to her mother for her first feed. Chrom nearly forgets to breathe himself when he sees her for the first time, red-faced and furious at being born. And then he sees them together, his beautiful, _exhausted_ wife, and their precious, tiny child, and he stops short.

Gods, but if Emmeryn could see. He blinks away the tears, and goes to his little family. From his mouth tumbles nonsense—repeated praise of Robin, of congratulations and love, of quiet adoration of Lucina as she settles, finally, into begrudging sleep.

* * *

“Prince Chrom, breathe, please—”

“Chrom, listen to him, you have to stop, please, just breathe, we’ll find her, we have to find her, we’ll always find her—”

It’s the third time since Emmeryn died that they’d told _him_ to breathe. The first time it was Robin, cupping his face in her hands and urging him to breathe as she wept openly with him, but now, gods, Robin is _gone_ , how could Naga let this happen, no no no _no_ —

Lissa is crushing him with a hug that’s accompanied by her shuddering sobs, and he realises the tears are flowing from him too as he breathes, finally, like they want him to, and Frederick stands there, face grave.

(No one would see the wetness in his eyes as Lucina and Morgan joined their father and aunt, mumbled questions going unanswered and disappearing to grief-stricken silence)

Chrom’s children grip his armour like he’s their only bit of land in an endless sea of grief, and he finds himself sobbing openly into Morgan’s tattered, patchwork cloak as the young prince shouts angrily at the sky that he’d _only just found her again_.

The tears stop eventually. Lissa’s words sink in. They’ll find her. He’ll find her. She’s alive. He’ll get her back.

He just has to breathe.

* * *

“…Robin…?”

“…Chrom.”

Breathing is secondary when they find her. When he crushes her to his chest and kisses her like he is afraid she will disappear (he is, gods, he is), and every moment she spends laughing and sobbing into that kiss he becomes more aware that this is _real_ , that she’s back. Lissa is laughing, and Frederick is smiling, and neither Chrom nor Robin can breathe because the other is like water to a parched soul.

Eventually they breathe.

Together.


End file.
